Blessed is He Who Hears and Obeys

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI, take it with a grain of salt…

Now, you can tell a lot about a church based off how it spends its time, can’t you? you think about all the different churches you’ve been to in your life, whether you’ve gone on holiday and visited a different church, or maybe gone to a friend’s church or gone to support a family member having a special service or something, you can tell a lot by the way they order their church services. And if you look at their church calendar and have a look at where they put their stress, where they spend their time, you can tell a lot about their priorities, can’t you? About what’s important to them, about what they believe is central.

And, and I wonder if someone was to sit down and look at our church’s calendar, and to sit down and look at how we as a church spend our time, if it was an outsider, what they would say. Uh, not so much a person from another church, but I wonder if someone who had never heard of Christianity, a person that’s never heard of the Bible, never heard of prayer, just a comp- an alien from outer space. Not that they, they don’t exist, okay? You understand they don’t exist. But if they did exist, and they turned up, and they, they came, and they spent a, a month with our church, what would they say? What would they say is central? What would they say about us as a people?

And we’re, we’re sitting here, and we’re looking at a passage which highlights the centrality of the Word of God, aren’t we? It’s all over the pa- it’s all over it. There’s 8 verses. It’s all over the whole chapter. The, the absolute central place of the Word of Christ. You, you can’t beat around the bush. You can’t avoid it, right? It’s right there. And we’ve been given it to consider. We’ve been given to consider what one might call the pre-eminent means of grace. Now, all means of grace are important, but there is a sense in which the Word of God is the pre-eminent means of grace. It’s the, the primary means whereby God achieves his purposes.

Well, think about it. He created the world by his Word, didn’t he? The Word of his power. He created everything. He sustains it by the Word of his power. He gives birth to new believers by the Word of his power. He strengthens you by the Word of his power. It is by his Word that he carries forth everything in this world.

But before we consider these verses, it’s actually really important that we take a step back for a little bit, just very briefly, and consider the unique historical circumstance that this is set in. You see, because otherwise, we can come to historical passages like this and then apply it wrongly, because we forget that it’s a unique moment in time. And providentially, the Lord was doing a bunch of different things.

I mean, you think about it. The Chapter 8 hasn’t just come out of nowhere, has it? Uh, Ezra has come out of nowhere in the book of Nehemiah, but, but the chapter hasn’t. Up ’til now what’s the Lord been doing? He’s been working in Jerusalem. He’s been working through Nehemiah. He’s been working through goldsmiths and, and different people in different ways in order to preserve his people, in order to settle his people in peace, hasn’t he? And he’s done it. He’s protected them from enemies. He’s, he’s enabled them to finish their war, and now the people of Jerusalem for the first time in almost a century find themselves in a settled place of peace.

You see, 100 years ago, they dwelled in a place of peace. It wasn’t where they wanted to be, but they dwelt in the place of peace. It was called Babylon. But it’s been a long time since they’ve dwelt in their own land, isn’t it? It’s been a long time since they’ve dwelt in peace within their own land, and yet God has finally done it.

It, it reminds me of the words of Paul in Galatians 4:4. I wonder if you remember the passage. Jesus, uh, the Apostle Paul says of Jesus that at the fullness of time, in just the right time, God sent forth his son, born of a woman. At the fullness of time. In other words, at the perfect time. And, and the same is true here, which means this is a unique moment, and we must be careful when we apply unique moments to ourselves lest we go, well, one equals one.

So, that’s what they did, and so that’s exactly what we have to do. Let me just give you an example of that. It says that they stood for the reading. Well, that means, of course, that unless you’re standing for the reading of God’s Word, you’re doing it wrongly. Is that what it means? Well, no, this was a unique moment, wasn’t it? Because otherwise you’re gonna have to argue that the only u- or the only appropriate way to worship is by falling with your face to the ground. It makes it very difficult to sing. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about that, but it would be challenging to sing with your face to the ground.

But there are principles here, right? And so we understand there is a uniqueness which we cannot just carbon copy over to our life, but there are enduring principles for you and I to apply to our lives. There are principles that God wants us to understand as a church and as individuals, and it all begins with a book. It begins with a book.

I, I wonder if, if you were to, if you were to plan out a Reformation, you know, you remember the Reformation in the 1500s. If you were to plan out a R- Reformation. God, God was to say to you in hypothetical land, “Well, I’m going to do a Reformation, and I’ll do it according to your plan, okay? I want you to plan it out.” Now, what, what book would you use? Uh, you don’t get to say the Bible, okay? That’s too easy. You know, a, a section of the Bible. You know, for Martin Luther, it was the Book of Romans, it was Romans that impacted him in particular and the Book of Galatians, the 2 books that drastically impact him.

What books would you pick? Would it be a Gospel? You know, the Gospel according to John maybe. I’m, I’m a huge fan of the Gospel according to John. I love reading the Gospel according to John over and over again. Maybe it’s one of the Epistles. Maybe it’s Ephesians. You love Ephesians, ah, yes. Like Matthew, who’s preaching for us on Ephesians next week. That’ll be Ephesians, that’s the one.

I wonder how many of you would pick the Law. How many of you would pick Leviticus? Yeah, we’ll have Reformation and we’re gonna use Leviticus, you know, all the things about skin diseases. We’re gonna use Numbers, long lists of names. Deuteronomy. Oh, Genesis, maybe. Exodus, maybe. They’ve got some good narrative portions. But after that starts getting a bit off-kilter somewhat.

Well, it’s striking, isn’t it, that the Law is so low on our priorities? Have you ever thought about that? I was having a conversation with a young, a young man this week who’s training. Not part of our church, obviously. A young man who’s training to become a minister, and he said to me that he was having a conversation with an elder, and he just asked the elder a question. He just said to the elder, “Well, have you thought about reading the Law during church service as a way of leading us into confession of sin?” And the elder said, “Why would I read the Law? I’d never read the Law in a church service. That doesn’t make any sense to me.”

And you scratch your head and think to yourself, “Never read the Law”? They’d never read the Law. I, I got told off for reading the Law I read the Law once in a church. I was asked to do the service, I did the service, I read the Law thinking it was quite normal. I grew up with the Law being read, and so I read the Lo- the Law. And an elder later on came up to me and chastised And said to me, “Oh, why are you reading the Law? What are you reading the Law for? Uh, wh- the Law, the Law’s for the Old Testament people. It’s not valid for us anymore. It’s done away with. We don’t need the, the Law being read.”

I wonder if it strikes you that it’s the Law of Moses that God uses to bring a reformation among his people? Have a look at verse one. “The people gather as one man into the square before the water gate, and they told Ezra, the scribe, to bring the book of the Law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel.”

Now, you realize they, they had more than the Book of Moses, right? I mean, they had all 150 Psalms, or maybe almost all of them. There were probably a few more written after this. They had Kings and Joshua, they had Judges. They had all sorts of books they could have gone to. But they said, “Bring out the Book of the Law. Bring out the Book of Moses that the Lord commanded.”

Why this book? Why the Book of the Law in particular? Well, you have to put yourself into the story of the Old Testament people. When the Lord, when the Lord saved his people from Egypt, he brought them out of Egypt, he brought them into a wilderness. He then established with them a what? A covenant, right? He entered into a covenant with them, and that covenant was written down on, on tablets of stone and then into a book, onto scrolls. And what was the covenant document? Well, the covenant document was the Law of Moses. It was the first 5 books, or you might call it the Pentateuch. The Torah. It was the Law of God. It was written down by Moses, and it was not just the Law, but it was a covenant book. It was a book filled with a reminder of the saving redemptive work of God, on one hand, and it was a reminder of the requirements of God upon his people. He said, “I have saved you from Egypt, and this is how you are now to live.”

Think about the Ten Commandments. We worked through them a while ago, “Because I have saved you out of Egypt, have no other gods before me. Make no idols for yourself,” and on and on. And the whole book was framed in that way. The whole book served as a reminder of what God had done, and what God required of his people. And, most importantly now for this particular context, a reminder of the blessings and curses given should the people walk in faithfulness with God.

Remember that really striking passage towards the end of Deuteronomy where you get the blessings and the curses of God? Uh, it’s very long, we won’t turn and read it. But in it, you find a massive chapter where God says, “If you will just obey me, if you will just walk in my ways, I will bless you. I will bless your wombs. I will bless your fields. I will bless your animals. I will bless everything so that you will abundantly be blessed in this land. But if you forsake me, if you forsake me, I will turn my face against you. I will make the sky like brass so that not a prayer goes through, and I will take you and I will bring you out of the land that I promised you and I will give you over to foreigners, and they will destroy your families. They will steal everything you have. They will destroy the works of your hands so you will have nothing left.”

Okay, so here are Israel now taking up the covenant book, the remnant that’s returned from Babylon, having faced the full judgment of God, and they now say, “Pick up the book.” Why do they ask for the book to be read? Because it’s a reminder of all that they’ve done, but it’s also a reminder that there is a God who is filled with mercy and grace. There is a God in the Law who says, “If you will seek me with all my h- your heart, I will be found by you.” It’s a reminder of both the blessings and the curses of God against them. It, it’s a book of salvation-in as much as it is a book of obligation.

A- and we see this in other parts of the Bible, don’t we? Remember the story of Josiah, when he finds the Law? Finds the Law in the temple. Seems like a funny place to find the Law, but apparently they’d forgotten the Law so much they didn’t even know where it was anymore. They had to break into a wall to find an old copy of the Law that someone had stashed in a wall at some point. Go figure. Even the priest is shocked when they find “Whoa, what’s this book? Haven’t heard of this before!” And the king goes, “A book? What kind of book? Why don’t you read it to me?” And as he hears the reading of the covenant book of God, he tears his clothes, he repents, he seeks God’s face, and the whole nation He re- leads the whole nation into an amazing reformation or movement.

That’s what’s going on here. And yet, we have to ask ourselves the question, well, what about for you and I? Because we’re not in Israel, right? Th- there’s a difference between them and us. What’s our covenantal book, you might ask? Is the 5 books our covenantal book? In which case, why don’t we just read the 5 books of Moses over and over again? It would be far more beneficial.

Now, who, who was the first covenant pointing to? Well, the old covenant was pointing to what? The new covenant. Yeah, remember, we celebrate it in the sacraments. What did Jesus say? “This is the blood of the new covenant.” “It’s founded in my blood,” Jesus says. You see, because Jesus is the substance of the covenant between God and man. And what we recognize now, that the Old Testament believers didn’t have the privilege of knowing and fully understanding yet, is that the Book of Moses was just a shadow, a foreshadowing, of the true covenant to come in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that as we come to the coming of Christ and the fulfillment of the Old Testament, we then end up not just with 5 books of Moses, but with an entire book declaring to us no longer a shadow, but the substance, the real thing, Jesus himself.

And so our covenantal book, you might say, is Christ himself. And Christ himself is declared in 66 books of the Bible, and it’s given to us in order to have the same effect that it had for the people of God of old.

And so we’re left with a book, and I think one simple application comes from this. It reproves us when we look to anything other than the And we’re tempted to do it, aren’t we? You know, the Bible’s not enough. It’s good, it’s helpful, it’s beneficial, but we need to jazz it up. We need more. We need testimonies. We need famous people to get saved and tell us about how they got saved. Then people will believe. And we become like the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. You remember the story Jesus tells, and where does, where does the rich man end up? He ends up in hell. And he has a conversation. It’s a parable, of course. He has a conversation with Abraham, with Father Abraham. And he says to Father Abraham, “Abraham, okay, I can’t leave hell, but I’ve got brothers still alive. I’ve got brothers alive. Can you please send Lazarus? If Lazarus goes and warns them, then, then they won’t be here with me.”

You remember the words of Abraham? He says, “If they won’t believe Moses and the prophets, then even if someone was to come back from the dead, they would not believe him.” Now, what’s Abraham communicating in that statement? He’s saying the word of God is sufficient and there’s nothing higher.

Do you realize that if your great-grandfather, hypothetically he’s a believer, was to appear here right now, it would have no more saving power on the unbelievers in this room than the words I am communicating to you in the Word of Christ. That might be shocking to you. You think, “Well, it’s gonna be very obvious if a dude that’s been dead for a hundred years comes back.” The Word of Christ, brothers and sisters, is completely sufficient, and that means we ought to be a people of the book, right? A people of the book.

The Jews were called after this moment. This was a monumental shift in the Old Testament. Prior to this, they were known by many other things, but from this moment onwards they became called the People of the Book. The People of the Book.

And so, we see a book. We also see a reading. You know, a, a book that is unread is basically a glorified paperweight, right? Now, I can say this as someone who has over 2,000 books in my study, and I can assure you I am yet to read them all. I would love to have read them all, but I haven’t. Ming’s making his good best effort he can to read them all, but I don’t even think he will manage, and I keep getting more. And every one of the books that is unread and op- unopened is effectively what? It’s a wall hanging. It looks nice.

Now, I do have them for a reason. I assure you they do get opened, but a book unread is effectively a glorified paperweight, right? And so, having a book, a covenantal book is a glorious thing only if people read it.

And here we find the book being taken up and read, and let’s observe the reading of Mm, we can say many things, but let’s just highlight 4 things about this, this reading.

Firstly, it’s done with great authority. The stage is set, you might say, and it’s done in such a way in order to communicate the authority that the book of God deserves. And so, there’s a pulpit created, a wooden pulpit. Now, it’s not just a practical reality so that everybody can see him, though that’s obviously there. It’s also a reality of a thing of respect and honor. You see, the same thing took place in the temple. Do you remember that? The further you went into the temple, the higher it got. Higher and higher you went as you got into the Holy of Holy of Holies. And it was constantly always the temple was on top of a what? A hill. And it was the highest point in Jerusalem, because it’s conveying to you that this is the seat of God, and he is higher than you are.

And the same is true in this moment. And by the way, in case you’ve always wondered why pulpits in church history have always been high and lifted up, it’s not because the preacher’s got a big head. It’s because it’s trying to communicate that message to you. This is why the minister would ascend in the pulpit prior to the preaching of God’s Word. I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at John Calvin’s church. In John Calvin’s church, it’s still there today, he had a wooden chair that sat just underneath the pulpit that he would sit in. And when it came to the preaching of the Word, he would slowly ascend this spiral staircase all the way to the top until he was well above everybody in the room, and he would preach the Word of Christ to them. Because Calvin’s impressive? Because the Word of God comes with the authority of God with it.

But also, you see the priests there, didn’t you? 7 on one hand, 6 on the other. Plus, plus Ezra makes 14. Why? Well, it’s communicating authority. This isn’t just the word of Ezra. This is the word committed to the priests of God. The proclaimers of God’s Word were there sanctioning it, looking on from behind. It would be like if Matthew stood behind me for the whole service, and, and every time I was preaching, he would say, “Amen. Amen. This is true. Amen. This is true.” Well, that would add some gravitas and authority and seriousness to the solemn situation, wouldn’t it?

Hey, you realize in some churches they do that. There’s some churches in the States where the elders will sit behind the minister. Uh, and the, in the UK too, I remember Luke Sheldrake was telling me, he preached in a congregation, the entire time he preached, there was an elder who sat at the floor underneath the pulpit, and he would sit there and nod and say, “Amen,” as the preacher preached. And what was being communicated constantly was, “This is the Word of God. Listen to it. This is the Word of God. Listen to it. Listen. Hearken your ears to the Word.”

It reminds me of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians, where he says, “We did not come with plausible words of wisdom, but with demonstration of the Spirit and power.” Came preaching the Word of Christ with authority and power.

But it didn’t just come with authority. It wasn’t just a showcase of, “Do what we say.” You can probably think of the Catholic Church. Wasn’t that long ago, go back a hundred years, where everything in the church was in Latin. Didn’t matter if you could understand it. “I’m sorry, we don’t care if you can understand the word. You will accept it because the priest has spoken it, and it will be good for your soul regardless.” Well, there’s none of that, is there? no, because the reading and the preaching is done with clarity. It’s well-read. It’s well-spoken.

And so, we see in verse 2, it’s, it’s, “They who hear and understand.” And in verse 3, it comes to the ears of the people so they can understand. And then we get that wonderful verse in verse 8. They read from the book, from the Law of God, capturing the whole picture clearly, and they gave the sense so that the people understand the reading.

Now, now, it’s actually quite hard for us to piece together exactly what happened in this section, because you get sort of a statement and then an unpacking, and, and most scholars aren’t entirely sure. But it’s something like, the priests stood at the front for 6 hours reading the Law, and they would take turns. And you can understand why. If you’ve ever read out loud for an hour, it’s very tiring. For 6 hours, you would be cooked. No microphone. And so, though for 6 hours, they took turns, and they would read a section, and then the Levites, which are in the second half, in verse 7, the Levites would go and explain it to the people, be- ’cause they want them to understand.

What’s it a picture of for us? It’s a picture of the preaching of God’s Word. You don’t come here just to hear me and my voice. I’m not that exciting. You come here to hear the Word of God read, but not just read, a- but explained, right? So that it’s clearly understood. It’s like Paul says, “We came with an open statement of the truth.” It should be clear to you.

D- I h- I hope you understand. If you’ve said this to me, please forgive me. But I hope you understand it’s not an encouragement to the preacher when you come up to him and you say to him, “I have no idea how you got that out of the passage. I have no idea how you got that. I mean, it was encouraging, but I have no idea how you found that.” I was really encouraged the other day. Brother John came up to me, and he said to me, “You know, I’ve always avoided the Book of Revelation ’cause it’s challenging to read. But, but you’re explaining it in a way that just kind of makes sense, and I understand it now.” Oh, praise the Lord. Well, what an encourage I love it when someone comes to me and says to me, “You know, I, I’ve never seen it before, but all of a sudden, it makes so much sense. It’s just right there. It’s just right there in the text.”

M- my desire is not that you become more reliant upon a preacher, but that you understand the Word of God better, because we’re all here to be students, aren’t we? To understand and have it clearly spoken to us.

And so, it comes with clarity. But then thirdly, it also comes in quantity, doesn’t it? From first light till noonday, 6 hours. 6 hours, they had the Word read. Now, I don’t think they were standing the whole time. They stood for the reading, didn’t they? I think the picture is more they stood for the book opening, they fell down and worshiped, and then they sat down to receive the Word, because 6 hours is a really long time to stand. But either way, they were there for 6 hours with the Word being read and explained.

And, and let’s be honest. How many of us think to ourselves, 6 hours might be a bit excessive? I mean, just be honest with yourself. 0 pe- people will sometimes accuse Reformed people of what’s called bibliolatry, right? It’s like making an idol out of the Bible. I mean, let’s be totally honest. How many of us are really in danger of making an idol out of the Bible? How many of us are far more likely to neglect the Bible?

If we’re honest with ourselves, if we actually sat down with our timetable and looked at how much time we spent in the Word, if as a church we sat down and looked at how much time we spent in the Word, how many people, how many outside aliens would come in and say, “These people worship the Bible”?

You know, this is not unique. This is not a one-off only occasion. We’re told in, uh, Acts 19 that Paul went to Ephesus and preached in the Hall of Tyrannus. And, and you’ll see in your Bible, if your Bible has footnotes, you’ll see in your Bible, there’s a footnote that says, “From 11:00 ’til 4:00 every day.” That’s 5 hours, right? Okay, it’s one short of the 6. But for 5 hours, he would preach in the Hall of Tyrannus every day, and the people would gather together, eager to hear the Word of God.

And don’t you love that moment when they’re up in the house and, and Luke records, “And Paul was long-winded in his speech.” And what happened? Eutychus fell out the window and died. Now, Eutychus shouldn’t have been falling asleep, he must have talked for a long time. And then what happened after Eutychus was raised from the dead? He carried on talking ’til the next day. He didn’t go, “Well, sorry everyone, I must have talked too long. My apologies. Let’s wrap this up so we can go and get some sleep.” No. He says, “Oh, well, praise the Lord, Eutychus is alive. I guess we can go back to our sermon again.” And he preaches through to the morning.

Why? Well, because they realized they needed the Word. They needed the Law to be read to them. And, but there’s one more. There’s quantity, yes, but also what you might call doxology.

Now open up the Word. What, what does it spring forth within them but worship, right? Ezra opens it up and he declares, he blesses the Lord, the great God, and the people lift up their hands and say, “Amen. Amen.” And they fall down and they worship.

And this is a, uh, important reminder for us that the end of all scripture and the end of all preaching is the glory of God. John, John Piper has this fantastic book called Expository Exaltation. probably one of my favorite books on preaching that I’ve read. Expository Exaltation. And his whole thesis, his whole argument is that the sole primary Not sole. The primary purpose of preaching is for preacher and hearer to worship the Lord in the very act of preaching. Not so that you hear the Word and then afterwards you go away and say, “Glory be to God,” but in the very act of the Word of God being read and expounded, your heart is lifted up to exult, E-X-U-L-T, not A, E-X-U-L-T, to exult in the living God.

This is the goal of this moment. Not to exult in a preacher, not to exult in a hearer, not to critique, but to give glory to the Lord who speaks. And that was exactly what’s going on in this chapter. The outcome is glory.

Now, we’ve got Matthew preaching for us next week, and maybe it’s fortunate that he’s not here today. I might feel unfair pressure. But that’s what we want from our preachers, isn’t it? Don’t, don’t you want men who’s gonna stand up here, Matthew to stand up here next week and, and to read and to preach with authority? And don’t you want us to read and preach with clarity so you understand, and with good quantity so you’re well-fed, and that you would glorify your God?

Isn’t that what you’re after? Well, what can you learn from this? Well, brothers and sisters, pray for us. Who is worthy of this calling? I hope you don’t envy us. It is an ominous thing to be an ambassador for Christ, heralding the Word of Christ. It is a solemn and serious task to take up the Word with authority, clarity, quantity, and doxology, and to declare Christ’s Word to his people.

Pray for us. And if you ever find yourself going home and thinking to yourselves, “Well, that was a bit of a miss,” as I find myselves thinking sometimes. I think that sometimes. Don’t worry, I don’t leave every sermon thinking it was amazing. Last week, Sunday evening, I drove home feeling just a bit sad about how average my sermon was.

If you ever find yourself thinking this way, pray. I remember I once had a person come in and sit down with me and c- and complain, not about my preaching, but about the reading of the Bible at Coven, ’cause you remember they used to have, m- I assume they still do this, they had different members come up and read the Word. So yeah, I’d say, “He’s so rubbish. He just reads it so bad.” And, and to be fair, they were kind of right. Just stumbled over words and it was generally a pretty bad effort at reading the Bible.

And I said to the person, “Well, did you pray for them before you came?” “Well, no.” “Well, there’s a great place to start. Pray that he’ll read the Bible better next time.” That is a good place to start, isn’t it? Pray for your preachers.

Then the other thing is, put premium here. You know, the minister can be tempted and your elders can be tempted to do a thousand different things, to spend their time visiting and spend their time doing this, that, and the other. Well, hold their feet over the coals and say to them, “Have you been in the study? Have you had your hand in the, head in the book? Are you being a man of the Word?”

And as a congregation put the ministry of the word central and hold that to the minister. Uh, brothers and sisters, I might die one day. Well, I will die one day, unless Jesus comes back first. And one day, you’ll have a different minister. Now find someone that treasures the word of God above everything else.

And so, brothers, sisters, we see a book, we see a reading, and there’s one more. We see a hearing. You know, I- I love a good book. I- I love even more a good book well-read. I love reading to my children out loud. I’ve always, always done it. Well, they’re a bit older now. Don’t do it to them so much anymore. One of them doesn’t live with me. But I- I loved reading through Narnia, Lord of the Rings, all sorts of different books, and I would love to try and do voices, try and make it as enlivening as possible.

And- and- and I love this, because that’s what my mother did to me. My mother’s one of the best story readers you’ll ever find. I might be biased. But you know what’s really sad, is a really good book, really well-read, but there’s no one listening to it. I mean, what a waste, right? Can you imagine my mother sitting in the lounge reading out loud with- with all of her efforts and all of her lovely voice and accentuation at all the right points, but me and my brothers left an hour ago. It’d just be a bit sad, wouldn’t it?

Well, brothers and sisters, there’s a book and there’s a reading, but there’s also a hearing, isn’t there? There are listeners in this picture. Observe the reading. Firstly, notice they’re all there. Well, almost all. We’re told in verse 2 that they assemble all the people together, men and women and all who could understand what they heard, which would be the equivalent of us saying everybody except for the people that were in creche, right? And maybe some who had mental disabilities and can’t-

Now, what’s this in encouragement for us as listeners? Well, it’s an encouragement for what we’re doing right now, which is family-centered worship. Children and church, this is one of the reasons we do what we do. This is why we don’t have Sunday schools, because worship family is- uh, worship is a family affair. We bring everyone together, and I think this encourages all of us parents to bring our children as often as we can, as much as we can. And it’s an encouragement for all of us to come alongside families and help them.

I remember being so touched when a dear old sister at Covenant, she comes up to me and she says, “Logan, I’ve noticed so-and-so’s family seems to be struggling with their children, and I just wanted to let you know that next week I’m gonna go and sit with them and help them.” She’s been expe- she’s done this before. She knows, she’s experienced. She’s a grandmother. And so, you know what? Next week, I look out from the pulpit and this dear old saint’s sitting right next to them. And she says to them, “If you’d like, I’ll take your children out to creche so you can sit and listen to the word. Let me help you. Let me help you with your older children. What can we do to assist you?”

I was encouraged this afternoon. My dear wife said to me, “Ah, Matthew will be preaching next week. I’ll have to talk to Shona to see if she needs help with Malachi.” Well, that’s- that’s the Church, right? Gathering the little ones and helping mothers and fathers be able to hear the word of God.

They’re all there. Wh- why? Well, because you can’t fulfill Deuteronomy 6 and the covenantal obligations unless the children are being trained in the way they should go. So, let us be a family of hearers together.

The second thing you’ll notice is that they’re listening attentively. Attentively, brothers and sisters. Have a look at verse 3. They’re there gathered together, the men, the women, all those who could understand, and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

What does it mean to be attentive? That means to be listening. Do you remember Did, did your mother ever say this to you? She said it to me a lot. That might just be a reflection on my character when I was a child, but my mother used to always say to me, “You’re hearing but you’re not listening.” I’d say, “I am listening, Mum,” or, “I am hearing.” Say, “You’re not hearing. You’re hearing, but you’re not listening.” In other words, your ears are receiving sound, but it’s not going into your brain, ’cause you’re not actually paying attention.

And, and we can be like this in church. And I know this, because I can be like this in church. This might surprise you, but I can read the Bible out loud while thinking about something completely differently. And you can listen to the Bible being read and hear the words and be thinking about something else, can’t you? It might be work, it might be what’s happening on Monday, it might be a relational thing. Could be anything under the sun. It could be your hobbies, whatever it is. The brain is elsewhere while the ears are still listening, and God is exhorting us to be attentive, isn’t He?

Now, how does it do it? Let me give you some practical advice. Let me give you some practical advice to be attentive. Go to bed on time. It might seem obvious, but if you’re sleepy, it’s really hard to sit and listen, right? It’s Saturday night, guess what you know is coming tomorrow? It’s not like the calendar changes, right? We’re here very, here every week. Get enough sleep so that you can concentrate and attend yourself to the reading of God’s Word. It’s a little thing, but you’ll be surprised the difference it makes.

Brothers and sisters, I hope you remember I can see you yawning. And I don’t mean that in a grumpy way, but it’s a reality, right? Here’s another thing: pray before you come, “God, help me listen.” The week is long, work is draining, family’s busy, and even if you go to bed on time, you’re still tired. “God, help me heed the Word of God. Help me listen. Not just pray for the preacher to be a better preacher, pray for myself to be a better hearer. Pray that I would hear better.”

0 another one: turn up on time. I, I want to clarify, a bunch of people turned up late today. I had this written down and prepared before I saw you all turn up late, so this is not me picking on you all of a sudden because you turned up late. But let’s just be frank, we’re family here, a bunch of you missed a section of the Word of God being read today because you turned up late. I’m sure we can all get to work on time, otherwise most of us would have lost our jobs by now. Turn up on time. Be here, ready to receive the Word of God.

I could go on, but I won’t. They listened attentively. The other way they listened is they weren’t quickly satisfied, right? As much as the preacher and the reader had lots to say, the people had lots to listen, right? They had a hunger. They had a desire for the Word of God. They longed for more.

You know, they didn’t get to hour three, and then we read, “And the congregation was quite a bit smaller.” But it encourages me how many people we have here tonight. Does that encourage you? You know, in most churches, most ministers will be happy if 25% of their congregation are there Sunday night. What a blessing that almost all of our people come here. Long may it last, and long may we encourage other people.

You need to, you need to come hungry. Here’s the problem: everything in this world fills you up. If you satiate yourself on the world, you will not come hungry, I guarantee it. If you spend all Saturday night and all Sunday morning leading up to church binging on YouTube, I guarantee you, you will come here and you will not feel very hungry for the Word of Christ. Don’t fill yourself with the things of the world.

Now, I’m not saying you can’t enjoy the God-given gifts of this world, but everything in good balance, right? And so, feed upon the Word and you will grow in hunger. T- they’re not quickly satisfied. They’re, they’re not like children with candy. You know, you know what children are like when they go to birthday parties, right? What happens? Well, if they’re anything like my children at birthday parties, I think of one of them in particular who would often go and end up throwing up on the way home in the car. Why? Because they binged on unhelpful things. But when they It’s surprising what happens when they eat good quality food. They want more quality food. It’s the same with the Word of God.

But then, lastly, the last thing that a hearer should be noted by, and we see it in the passage here, is that they put it into action. It has an effect. It bears forth fruit. We see it in 2 ways. You have to go a little bit further. Firstly, you see the response of amen and amen. But then in verse 9 to 12, you see an emotional response, we talked about it last week, this weeping this turning to joy. But then in verse 13, they come back the next day for more. So, they send all the heads of the house back in and say, “I think we never had a helping. Let’s dig back into the Word again. We want more.” And then they immediately give themselves to obedience. Why? Because the Word of God is not a museum piece or an art exhibition, is it? It’s to change the person. It’s to transform us into the image of Christ, and the people of God hear it in order to put it into action.

And so, we need to make sure that we’re not like the man in the book of James. Quoted it many times. Do you remember? He looks into the mirror, and he immediately forgets what he looks like. James says, “Don’t, don’t do that. Don’t read the Word and then immediately forget you’re meant to be doing something Take the Word, read it, and then say, ‘What does God want me to do about it?”‘

Now, I’m sure there’s been some very practical things that I’ve said today, and you’ve thought to yourself, “I don’t do that at all.” And the Lord’s spoken to your heart and said, “This is something I want you to do,” or, “That’s something I want you to change.” And there’s 2 things you can do that Well, you can walk out of here and forget all about it and come back next week and sit back down, or you can go out and do it, because we are not just to be hearers of the Word, but doers of the Word, right?

And so, we see a book. We see a reading. We see a hearing. And brothers and sisters, a book well-read and well-received is a blessing to the reader and the hearer alike, right? I used to love watching side-eye, watching my children when I read the book, watching their faces get into the book as I read. It can be the same for you and I. It delights me so much when I, when I see you feeding upon the Word as I’m preaching. And I hear, I see nods, and I hear amens and quiet murmurs of agreement, and I see your lives changing as I am seeing, because you’re doing it, brothers and sisters. And let us do it more and more each day, lest we fall into the trap of the congregation of John Rogers.

You’ve probably never heard of John Rogers. He was a man in the 1600s, a minister in the 1600s, and one day he stood up to his church because he was tired of their apathy, apathy to the Word of God. And in the middle of the sermon, as some of the Puritan preachers were wont to do, he started acting out his sermon, in a sense, and he, and he says all of a sudden he takes on the role of God. He speaks for God, and he says, “I’ve given you a book, and what have you done with it? You’ve wasted it. You’ve done nothing with it. And you know what? I’ve had it guts full of it. I gave you the book, and you’ve just trivialized it. You’ve left it to sit on counters and gather dust. You only pull it out when the minister comes to visit. I see. I know. You don’t listen when the Word is preached, and so I’m taking it away.”

And so, then he begins to pack up the Bible, the pulpit Bible. He shuts the pulpit Bible, and he sticks it under his arm, and then all of a sudden he takes on the personality of the congregation, and the congregation says, “Lord, please, no. We, we, we acknowledge we’ve done wrong. Forgive us, forgive us, for, for we’ve neglected the Word. We’ve refused to listen to what you have to say. Please, don’t take the word of life away from us.”

And then he switches and impersonates God again, and he says, “Fine. I’ll g- I’ll leave my Word with you. I’ll give you, I’ll give you another chance. I’ll leave the word of life in your hands. What will you do? What will you do with the word of life?”

And do you know what happened? The congregation broke down weeping in the middle of the sermon. Why? Because they were so terrified that the minister was actually gonna pack up the Bible and take it away and they would no longer have the Word sitting before them.

You think to yourself, “That’s a crazy response.” Is that our response? Now, what would you do if halfway through the sermon I said, “Do you know what? You guys don’t listen to me,” and I just picked up the Bible and walked out the door? Apart from saying this is very awkward, wou- would it have an effect on you? Would you be worried?

What would God say of us if God addressed us about our devotion to the Word?

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